Working better as a team

By Brian Robin | PUBLISHED: May 28, 2019 at 2:48 pm | UPDATED: May 28, 2019 at 2:49 pm Sometimes, you just have to get away to find your way. Even as she refused to discuss winning Big West titles, Kelly Ford found herself trying to figure out a way to a win a fourth conference title with 10 freshmen on the roster and without her best pitcher, Trish Parks, who suffered a concussion during a throwing session just the day before. So Ford, Cal State Fullerton’s softball coach, followed through with a planned team getaway to the hills above Santa Barbara. The answers on how to make 10 freshmen mesh and where to find another No. 1 pitcher may not come on this trip, but Ford figured anything that got her team members talking to each other couldn’t be bad for the big picture. Anything that got them swallowing fire, breaking boards with their heads and doing a ropes course? Well, why not? “We were in shock because we didn’t know what it meant with Trish,” … [Read more...] about A softball season to remember: Freshmen gel as a team

By Helen Santoro | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group PUBLISHED: March 3, 2019 at 6:00 am | UPDATED: March 4, 2019 at 6:06 am SAN FRANCISCO — Sixteen years ago, a middle-aged clinical psychologist mustered up the courage to walk into an endocrinologist’s office in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, to ask the doctor for hormones to begin transitioning from male to female. The physician was brusque and offered no help. “She said, ‘I don’t do that,’” recalled Erica Anderson, who now works with transgender patients at the UC San Francisco Child and Adolescent Gender Clinic. “I left the office feeling like a leper.” In recent years, Anderson and others in the field agree, attitudes toward transgender rights have changed dramatically among medical professionals and the general public. But they also concur that there is still surprisingly little data on the impacts of transgender treatments, particularly when it comes to … [Read more...] about Big gaps in transgender research: A team at UCSF is working to change that

Lavelle Scottie deals with highs and lows on a regular basis in his squadron.It’s Scottie’s job, when he’s not putting up the most one of the most prolific offensive seasons in Air Force basketball history, to hand out punishment while also boosting morale.“You work on both extremes,” said the 6-foot-7 junior forward, who holds the title of “first shirt” in his squadron. “It’s kind of funny because you’re handing out punishment, but at the same time you’re like, ‘It’s all right guys; it’s all good.’”In basketball, Scottie has also navigated between extreme opposites.He struggled early this year, piling up more turnovers (31) than field goals (29) over the first seven games. Against New Mexico, he missed 17 shots.But the positive moments have been equally exaggerated. He’s scored 20 or more points seven times this season, including a 34-point performance against Wyoming.Scottie’s … [Read more...] about Lavelle Scottie’s explosion for Air Force credited to comfort, confidence as a player and cadet

Randy Essex Detroit Free Press Published 7:30 AM EST Feb 9, 2019 A little Motor City blasphemy: The less time I spend in a car, the happier I am. Quick background: I’m a downtown resident, having moved back to Detroit 14 months ago after working for the Free Press from 2006-11. Faced with outrageous auto insurance costs plus rent and parking rates that are much higher than when my wife and I lived in downtown Detroit a few years ago, we decided in May to try life without owning a car. The existence of the Qline and Whole Foods, neither of which was here during our first stint, makes it possible to get groceries. Zipcar and Maven, hourly rental car-sharing operations, enable us to get to appointments outside the downtown core. Uber is an option, though we rarely use it. More: I've decided to go carless in Detroit — and it's liberating More: Detroit's temperature breaks 99-year-old cold record The warm-weather months were easy. We were deprived of nothing, renting a … [Read more...] about Life is better without a car, even in subzero Detroit weather